Puzzle Pieces
The Lead Up
Before you came onto the spiritual path, you felt like life was not only mundane, but trying at times. There were mean people, those who hurt and disappointed you, fearful things in the world; you wished for peace.
It was the early decades of my life. I, too, found inside myself a lot of anger towards myself and others. The first people I was angry at were my family. They were not who I wanted and expected them to be, giving me, the things I thought I deserved.
They needed to be there, but I felt they weren’t;
to give me love; but I felt they didn’t;
to provide me with all the stuff I wanted; but I thought they didn’t.
What entitlement! What self-centeredness. No wonder I suffered!
I didn’t see my mother’s overwhelm from running a large household or her being overworked when we children only wished to fight one another with our fists (yes, we really did that), sit around watching TV, complain, then mess up the house and whine for more snacks.
I didn’t see my father’s burden of having to work seven days a week to feed and house us all, nor his potential sense of feeling trapped within the option of eventually needing to travel to a neighboring city every week in order to provide enough for his family.
I didn’t see my siblings’ feelings of being lost in a group of children without particular attention to their needs, their feeling insecure, unloved or unsafe, feeling unprovided for...
Though in later years on the surface I tried to mask everything like an adult with “positive thinking” and affirmations—without getting to the root of these sentiments—it would take many bitter years of pain, disappointments, overtrying, chasing &, eventually, the very nature of desire eventually collapsing upon itself, before I would “graduate” from these basic gripes against life.
But triumph comes in waves. First comes the pain long before surrender. After much seeking and practice, doors of the magical experience of the Universe and its wisdom began to open. The more of our falsehood that we give up through understanding, the more we grow into the wholeness of Divine love.
And this walk brings gems of knowing that become gifts for us and gifts to share with the collective. So there is hope for everyone as there was for me. Even this is a signpost for others that hope and yes—sweet grace—comes after the pain…if we surrender, open and LEARN.
Now let us turn to your own situation…
So, life seems to still be full of blocks, confusion and closed doors? Or maybe you are happy with your chosen spiritual walk and you seek new growth to bring into the direction you are already headed? And regarding this new growth, you are still a little unsure, searching, waiting, hoping? Perhaps there is more imbalance to solve and you are ready to examine it. You are ready to surrender, open and LEARN.
These wonderings could be your tests, you tell yourself because it seems you know this. And you are sure there is something more to understand regarding the further correction and alignment of your energy, so you seek comprehension.
Maybe some of you have been eagerly seeking the Divine, and yet, you find internally that you still have confusion or disappointment, whether occasionally or more frequently. Perhaps you dare to ask sometimes, “Where and when would come that Divine light, joy, bliss, the ecstasy of the mystics? When would life feel like you were actually walking with god?”
You could understand this to be a test. Patience. Trust. Consistency. Yes. These are all wonderful qualities to develop along the path. These are all things you may be working to develop. But what more? What might be the specific missing puzzle-piece, the secret ingredient to the bread-of-the-day which you must put together?
There are many ingredients to the spiritual walk proposed by many schools. No matter our selected methods and views regarding this, there is one thing that can serve all of us in our journey, whether we understand ourselves to be “seeking”, “finding”, “knowing”, “just being” or however our current experience is being perceived.
We will not say to you something like, “You are a special, eternal soul that will be rescued when you join a particular group,” or something wishful like this. But we can promise that, with suitable activation and inner work, there could be a unique expression and set of events which do unfold through your incarnation, and that these events and actions can make their particular difference to the collective.
Okay, how, then, does suitable activation open up for the aspirant?
Preface to the Combo
Everyone wants a guru or school to initiate them or perhaps provide them with a Shaktipat as an engine jump-start. Then apparently they believe they will be scot-free, have made it! Wouldn’t that be nice? Imagine if your fitness trainer could do your push-ups for you? — Or a professional eater to eat your meals for you? It would be nice, but then why should you exist if they were going to walk out your path for you?
The experiences are for your particular awareness-point to go through and the lessons you will learn within your energy-field will be special indeed. Technically, it is slightly more complicated than what we could say here, but for the purpose of this discourse, this will suffice.
Now, you have had many experiences, and now it is time to open a new door of discovery that is waiting for you. It is time to launch your own activation. There are currently those out there introducing some of this information. This is because it is simply a current message from Source that some can hear at this time.
However, the audience has a lot to do with how this message can be given and applied. For those reading here, we wish to combine this advice with its appropriate companion, just how French fries are complimented by a good sauce or spice mix (and once you go for the combination, could you ever go back?).
This point we will introduce is an activation which can & will become amplified towards freedom, and be expressed through truly responsible use of its power, when coupled with the factor of ego-alchemy (dissolution of our shadow into something higher)...
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Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.
— Matthew 6:33
“To those who are constantly devoted and who worship Me with love, I give what they lack and preserve what they have.”
— Bhagavad Gita 9.22
“Better than sovereignty over the earth… is the fruit of entering the stream.”
— Dhammapada 178
The mystics described the passionate abandonment of their finiteness in exchange for the ecstasy of the Divine. We can look to the words of Saint Theresa of Avila who exclaimed through her vision Transverberation, “I saw in his hand a long spear of gold… He appeared to pierce my heart several times… and left me all on fire with a great love of God,” or The Spiritual Canticle by St John of the Cross,
“I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.”
The ego or our shadow side: our fears, internal lying narratives, pains, phobias and neuroses, our justifications for being lazy, bitter, angry—this egoic part of us fears this ecstasy greatly, for it secretly loves pain. If we were to take up Joseph Campbell’s advice that “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek,” we would be willing to face this pain and to transcend it, in order to step into our authentic wholeness.
Ancient scripture has been buried under a kind of religiousness that masks the truth of what was originally conveyed. The small and finite self is an illusion. So when we give it up, technically we are giving up nothing.
What was it the Buddha had discovered when he introduced the teaching of the not-self? — Yes, inherently, we do not exist the way that we imagine we do. The reputation we fight to protect and fear to have changed from what we imagine, the people we cling to or fail to control, the hopes we fight for that may or may not eventuate...These are all part of a losing battle that does not see the Reality for what it is.
We find the teaching from Buddha in the Dhammapada, "All conditioned things are impermanent. When one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering." The ego holds on to what has been, fights to fix things and stop the movement of life itself in its ongoing expressions and cycles. But it cannot. Neither does the “ego” exist as a permanent entity in a fixed state.
What does all this have to do with the ecstasy of the Divine? We need to understand that we cause our own pain by holding onto things—the cave Campbell described. But if we could go through the cave, face our internal struggles, fears, illusions, disagreements and strong opinions, arrogance, superiority, insecurities, desires, then we could surrender that false shadow, fully comprehending that that false entity is not us; we do not exist as a finite being. Piercing through with this comprehension comes the bliss of the Divine, coupled with our own limitlessness.
This is not only internal freedom, balance, equanimity and exit from suffering, this is also the gateway to all these things from the “kingdom of god” which will be “added unto you.” As Ram Dass’ guru, Maharaji put it, “You can have everything in the universe when there is NO MORE YOU, to have it.”
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Piece One is the Ego-Work
Let’s look at the first piece of the puzzle. We understand that we need to clean up our mess.
If the ego is the thing in the way, why are we so afraid to give it up? Matias De Stefano had explained that the ego could be understood like a black hole. Truly, those with comprehension know that 1. as long as we are having a kind of experience within the Reality, the only way this experience is possible is through a measure of subjectiveness, regardless of how subtle, 2. when we give up the lower self, we are really purifying and transmuting it into a higher self (this process goes on infinitely until we are fully united with the Absolute, infinite, everything-nothing “thing” which cannot ever be named).
One way to understand this is that we ARE infinity. However, as “the infinite”, we do not exist within any kind of perceptibility nor experience. Therefore, when coming into experiential reality, we arise as a specific equation that is a reduction against infinity—a black hole, a fallen star, a fallen angel, a very specific quantifiable curation of nothingness.
So, in doing the inner work, the goal is not to disappear, just yet. “WE” in our conception of who we are, already do not exist. We are one illusion arising within many layers of a bigger illusion. The goal is really to transform the base materials which we appear to be, into something higher, altruistic and in service of reducing suffering for all beings.
In our lowest point of this “existing”, we experience the discomfort, confusion and chaos of the dense vibrations. As a fallen star, we are far below, in the so-called Hell-realms, our own infernos or — as is called — the Klipoths in Kabbalah.
Why would we do such a thing? Divinity is all-knowing, so it must also know what it feels like to be lost, to be finite, and to truly understand its own fullness and beauty through the contrast of the return towards the infinite.
Once Ram Dass mentioned how those in some Hindu traditions would describe “the saints who hover at the doorway to the Absolute”, in perfect bliss yet unready to submerge once more into the Unity where there would be no more such perception so close to our own infinite happiness. So, this is why we as the infinite we make these journeys down and then up again—decent & ascent.
With daily meditation to systematically comprehend and free the lower parts of ourself, we begin to alchemize this into higher values that continuously purify the mind-stream and gradually raise our frequency, little-by-little. When we do this work, we will be digging up our shadow, facing our inner traumas and darkness, being pulled in every which direction as we seek to heal and reconfigure ourselves. In all this work, the second puzzle-piece will be essential to keeping us from falling apart, a kind of safeguard, but also a major enhancer.
Currently, those brave souls undertaking a spiritual journey of ascension in these dark and difficult times require a better context of the awakening process, one that expresses with modern terminology, that connects to all three of science, New Age and the Occult. The understanding that harmonizes all these factors is to see that regardless of our path, we desperately need to heal our energy field, each individual portion being a part of the whole.
Piece Two is Coherence
We are talking about coherence—alignment of our inner state through persistent awareness towards being authentic and true, no lies to ourselves, keeping our word, our promises, not betraying our inner core, our values, being careful with our speech, and so on. Didn’t the Buddha mention this before?--right action, right speech...
Coherence has already been introduced to the spiritually-inclined part of the collective. However, we wish to suggest that it is able to provide the greatest assistance to oneself and the collective at this time through the lens of true, compassionate altruism; in other words, coupled with deep work upon the ego.
You see coherence is simply a law of the Universe that works for anyone whether they dissolve the ego or not.
Some time ago, we met an acquaintance of spiritual matters whose aura was dense and incredibly powerful. Their mannerisms were charming and friendly on the surface. But to those sensitive to energy and auras, their density could not be hidden.
We must pause this story to explain that — for those who are not familiar with the non-dual aspect of Reality from a higher vantage point —the mention of density or low vibration could sound to be alarming or accusatory. However, we do not shame nor debase any fellow being experiencing a part of the path and the Construct. Even the very darkest beings are required for the Construct to remain in balance.
Where there is great darkness, the light shines brighter.
Esoteric studies apply to all serious seekers. What is done by the individual with any practice, path or information, is theirs to practice, experience and the consequences of which to own.
Back to the story, this person pretended (perhaps also to themselves) to be very friendly and kind, almost too much so. But when standing near to them, or looking into their eyes, there was unmistakable density. The reason for this was actually what we can call a double-density.
First of all, they were incarnating dense principles due to a particular set of attachments and views coupled with advanced energy work. Secondly, they unconsciously worked to mask all of their shadow qualities because they must have felt the need to appear very spiritual, conscious and advanced in their particular situation. They were inauthentic, internally misaligned, untruthful, pretending; their own vibrations were clashing within themself.
The gap between “their truth”—the egoic nature of the shadow they fought so hard to mask, and the image they projected out to the world, was a major incoherence in their field. They could have been a more effective being of their chosen path, dense as it may have been, simply by being coherent— aligning mind, heart and body.
Here we understand this part of the lesson. Coherence doesn’t care if you are in ego or not. We have established that ego is our unique set of filters which cause us to have a subjective experience. The more we dissolve these filters and transmute our shadow, the more clearly connected to Source and activated in our mission and potential we will become.
But through this whole journey of spiritual ascension, our coherence matters every step of the way. Dissolving ego can help us to be more coherent. But we cannot wait to dissolve all of it in order to be aligned. We can begin by removing surface-level inner contradictions, balancing our emotions with our intentions, and making sure our actions are always authentic to the truth of the moment as we understand it.
People who are in alignment report seeing synchronicities, manifesting, and having angel numbers appear all the time, even though they may not yet be “officially” on a spiritual walk to “return home”. We say “officially” in jest because truly, every existence is simply another step of the same long path which will eventually lead to the awakening efforts and journey, no matter how many universes it takes.
The Science of Coherence
But the alignment or parts of ourselves being in place to flow with the Reality, come from the Construct itself running efficiently. We will talk about this more in a moment.
Scientists like Greg Braden and Bruce Lipton have pioneered bringing scientific conversations of the evolution of consciousness into the public sphere. Many have begun to understand how the immortality of consciousness is based on the known facts that everything is energy and energy can neither be created nor destroyed—only transformed.
Currently, there are many individuals on this planet who have awakened in different ways to various levels. This has opened the doorway for us to understand experientially that the supposed individual we mistakenly identify as, could more precisely be described as a node within larger conscious field of awareness. Therefore, such a field would have its own properties and Cosmic Laws by which it functions. There would also obviously be ways to optimize its function.
Efficiency allows a system to perform in an optimum manner. Take any system. When energy travels from Point A to Point B, if there are obstacles or hindrances blocking the flow of such energy, then the efficiency of the system will be reduced. The energy will be diverted or delayed in its path. Simultaneously, the system will be continuously seeking the path of least resistance towards balancing and managing the energy of its own system.
In the same way, when our internal parts are very disconnected, when our intellect, our emotions and our actions do not agree with one another, the field does not render our manifested reality in the most optimum manner. Energy is not free flowing.
In the occult teachings, it is said that we have seven bodies. These represent layers of the Reality—dimensions—through which energy from Source flows down to us and our manifestation, our rendered experience. When these parts of ourselves are lined up this assists the Construct to create a free flow of energy. Whether we are vibrating high or low (we would argue many reasons to support moving into a higher vibration, but that is another topic), our coherence matters.
Even if we are still asleep, if we are authentic—aligned—coherent, then the Construct has to manifest more efficiently by suppling our experience according to this aligned signal.
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The Combo
It is our warm suggestion, to be BOTH coherent and to dissolve our conditioning, our filters, our obscurations or kleshas, we would then gradually become a source of wisdom-happiness for ourselves and all beings, fulfilling both the Divine purpose of awakening and helping others to awaken, and our mission which would be our own unique expression of this Divine purpose.
Coherence + alchemizing the shadow into higher values is a key combination that can supercharge the spiritual path. Yes, we will still have challenges, tests, difficulties and subtler layers of attachment to untangle ourselves from, but working in this way will provide not just a strong assistance for our work, but the unlocking of true inner peace & joy, along with a kind of natural ease which allows the things needed for each stage of the journey to arise Divinely.
So, what is the way forward? We can study and work with the specific ways to dissolve the ego and then, knowing we are making the efforts to migrate our “fallen star” little-by-little towards its restoration, we can bring in the rocket-fuel of coherence.
There is much more to study regarding this, but the first baby steps we can take here are to become aware of internal division, contradictions and seek to harmonize our inner state.
In terms of being true, we must avoid making promises and claims we cannot or do not plan to keep. We must be consistent and not renege or what we have stated. If we say we will meet someone for coffee, we had better show up rather than think nothing of making our word as flaky as a fresh croissant.
If we receive an inspiration or idea in our heart, and it feels RIGHT, we’d do well to drop the hesitating, overthinking and the fears and insecurities of our past habits. This is how we train our ability to hear our own core, our true inner master.
If our heart is vehemently against rolling with a particular crowd or scene, until we can resolve and understand the source of this internal dissonance, we would benefit from at least being true. Then go and work to understand and dissolve those aggregates that are getting involved and causing the conflict.
If there is something that feels wrong according to our intuition, we must not permit such an inner contradiction. Otherwise if we proceed with the misaligned action, this will dampen our inner voice of light.
The strange enigma here is that, the more we open and surrender, the more we understand that coherence is EASY when you are not identified with any kind of a self, a story, and so on... So they work much more powerfully together. Each one helps the other. To separate them would be like eating sushi with a single chopstick, never knowing there was a far superior way to eat it.
The unique and particular application of this for you is another puzzle piece in the eternal journey.
Reflect on all these things. The last part is to meditate and absorb this guidance to see how your own heart can guide you in its application. Understand for yourself the best way to work with these beautiful seeming paradoxes. These teachings can greatly benefit your inner work and outer experience of it.
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Over the Long-Haul
One day, you will discover your awareness-point in the field to be such a saint who hovers at the doorway to the Absolute, one step away from surrender into non-perception. At that moment you may also understand how we are all each other’s past and future lives on the endless path that infinitely grows through cycles of sleep and awakening.
Also, that truly, past lives do not really exist, but from a higher vantage point, they are parallel timelines happening within an eternal now. At that point, you well would have comprehended and integrated the knowledge of coherence, many incarnations ago you would have cleared the blocks, confusion and closed doors, you would have discovered the ecstasy of walking with god, you would have dissolved so many levels separation through many, many layers of Reality. And home would be a place that leads to more journeys.
“Seek no other refuge.”
— Dhammapada 160
